Husband who taught me how to live
DAvID and I hadn’t known each other long. We met on a walking holiday on the Isle of Arran seven years ago and were married for just five years.
He said he noticed me first, but he soon got my attention. I was 44 and he was 62, but he didn’t look it: in fact, I made him show me his driving licence to prove his age!
At the end of the holiday, he asked for my email address — even though he didn’t have a computer. He did have a telephone, thankfully.
He lived in Paisley in Scotland and I was living on the South Coast in Lancing, West Sussex, but the next weekend I travelled back up to try to get to know him better.
Within a month, I’d taken the plunge and moved my life to be with him.
I’d realised pretty quickly that David was special. He wasn’t a religious man, but he was a good man, and he saw the good in every person he met. He didn’t
try to fix people or change them, he just accepted them as they were. And he listened. He would help anyone — he’d give lifts home, roll up his sleeves and paddle in if someone’s kitchen had sprung a leak, and he’d bake for anyone and everyone.
Glasgow- born, David took over his father’s newsagents in Paisley, which he later sold to go and work for John Menzies, delivering newspapers to shops throughout the night. While he missed the bustle of his shop, he soon adapted and became part of the team.
Neither of us had been married previously. David had lived with his parents until they died. He’d also never really been in a very serious relationship before, so his marriage proposal took a few hints and a few stiff drinks. But it worked.
We moved to the Scottish Highlands when he retired and I carried on working as a freelance financial journalist. We got married in Nairn on August 11, 2012. I wore white and he wore his kilt in the Campbell tartan.
We were very happy — though I hadn’t realised what a comedian he was. How he deliberately made mistakes, got colours wrong, put things in cupboards upside down, back to front, just for the fun of it.
David didn’t think life should be too perfect. He liked for things to go slightly wrong.
Despite being on tablets for hereditary heart disease, he was fit and able and never really ill. The day before he died, he was walking our dog, Campbell, and met his best friend for a drink.
He even drove himself to hospital because it was supposed to be simple day surgery to fit stents in his arteries that would protect him from a sudden heart attack. But it turned out there were complications — though they did everything they could.
It’s only afterwards that I realised the extraordinary gift David gave me.
He exuded calm and never got upset or frustrated in a traffic jam, or even when his favourite football team lost.
He took the time to daydream. He never complained. He accepted things as they were and always showed empathy, even to complete strangers. He showed me how to live well. And then there was that sense of humour!
He was such a lovely husband. It felt like we’d only just met. I never expected him to go so suddenly.
DaviD alexanDer FaulDs, born May 17, 1948, died December 9, 2017, aged 69.